Ep. 85: The Emotionally Intelligent Boardroom with Guest Sharon Critchlow

Ever wonder what it takes to navigate the complexities of a boardroom? Sharon Critchlow, an accomplished executive director, accountant, and speaker, joins us to share her journey from a small English town to making her mark in the world of finance and leadership. An expert in the intricate dynamics of board service, Sharon lends her insight on understanding agendas, presenting papers, and the critical role of being a friend within the board.

Her journey doesn't stop there. Sharon shares how she mastered the art of public speaking and the importance of stepping outside her comfort zone. With an intriguing story and thought-provoking questions, Sharon underscores the centrality of emotional intelligence in our responses to various situations. What if we all responded to each other with empathy and asked questions instead of reacting with our immediate emotional responses? How could our world be different?

If you've ever considered a board position or are curious about the role emotional intelligence plays in leadership, this is a conversation you won't want to miss. Hear Sharon's inspiring story and take away invaluable advice from her experiences in leadership and board service. Prepare to be enlightened on the fascinating world of leadership and board service.

As an international best-selling writer and speaker Sharon is a vocal changemaker. She brings passion to the subjects of the future of work, diversity, emotional intelligence and environmental social governance.

Writer of numerous articles published across the globe on wellbeing topics, she is the co-author Amazon best-selling book: "Love Your Life! 100 Tips For More Peace and Happiness."

Sharon is Director at Discover Your Bounce, which is a personal development and workplace wellness provider and is a qualified Accountant with over 20 years of experience in board roles and growing successful businesses in the financial services sector. Now a qualified coach and mentor, Sharon is passionate about people becoming the best that they can be and allowing their true talents to shine. She continues to share her board experience as a Council member for ACCA, which is a global accountancy provider and as a non executive director of Clarion Housing Association.

Transcript

Sharon Critchlow: 0:00

For me, integrity is about your own deepest values, and so it's living to those deepest values. If you had to wear a placard with your actions versus how you feel, would you be in alignment or would you be ashamed?

Kyla Cofer: 0:23

Welcome to the Leadership School Podcast. I'm your host leadership and self-care coach, Kyla Cofer. Here at the Leadership School, you'll hear leaders from around the world sharing their stories and expertise on how to lead with balance and integrity. Our goal Teach you how to be an extraordinary leader. Welcome back, leaders. I hope you're having a fantastic, incredible day. I am about to make it better with a really inspiring conversation.

Kyla Cofer: 0:57

Today I'm talking with Sharon Critchlow. She is the director at Discover your Bounce, which is a personal development and workplace wellness provider. So Sharon is actually an accountant. She's had over 20 years of experience as an accountant and she took that experience and used it to become a board member. She's been on multiple boards and she helps people on boards. She is now a continual member of the board for the ACCA. It's a global accountancy provider. She also is a bestselling author. She wrote the bestselling book Love your Life 100 Tips for More Peace and Happiness.

Kyla Cofer: 1:30

She's a speaker. She shares her story and she makes a couple of really good jokes in our conversation about what it means to be an accountant and a public speaker, but she loves talking about emotional intelligence. So in our conversation today, we're really talking about three different things. We're talking about being a board member. What does it mean to be on a board? What does it look like? How do you do it? How do you approach different situations? She shares her experiences with that and just does some training on that. Then part two is we talk about emotional intelligence, which is really interesting. This has been really a theme of our podcast this season, this year, or maybe the entire podcast, because of how much I love talking about emotional intelligence. In our conversation specifically, she tells a jaw-dropping story and in that story she gives two key questions and these two questions really get into the deep of how do you respond to things as a mature person in a way that promotes humanity. It's really beautiful. I encourage you to listen all the way to get to this conversation. Make sure.

Kyla Cofer: 2:33

Our part three is our Patreon conversation. So after our interview, we have a more casual laid-back conversation where we talk about what is integrity, what is balance, and we just chat for a little while just casually. In that I was really really inspired by a beautiful description, for me personally, of my perfect life. If you want to hear what my perfect life is, you need to jump on over to our Patreon at patreon. com/ leadership school and you'll get to hear Sharon and describe my perfect life. It's one that she's living. It's really interesting how we turn the conversation there. Make sure to join us.

Kyla Cofer: 3:09

Thank you so much for listening to the Leadership School Podcast. It's always a pleasure and honor to share these stories with you and share these journeys and bring you inspiring leaders from around the world. I'm really grateful for you joining me on Leadership School Podcast. I'm really excited to hear your story. I think we have a really interesting topic, so I would love for you if you could start us out by telling us your story, telling us who you are, what brought you here and, I guess, what qualifies you to talk about leadership. But we know that you're qualified. I'm just curious about your story.

Sharon Critchlow: 3:36

So my name is Sharon Critchlow and I grew up in the southwest of England in a very lovely holiday sort of area by the sea. It wasn't the sort of place where leaders you would think spring from, but as I know now, leaders come from all sorts of different places. I didn't leave school with great academic qualifications, but I was very fortunate in that I discovered ACCA, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which is an accountancy body, and they enable you to take a master's level qualification but to do it by distance learning, to do it remotely, you can do it through universities. There's lots of different open access ways of getting this qualification. And that's what I did. And despite leaving school with not very much, I qualified as an accountant when I was 23. And what that did is it gave me the opportunity to expand out from this lovely little town where I grew up, where I would look as I was making coffees for people in the coffee shop. I would look out over the bay and see all the boats and think I'll never be able to afford one of those, I'll never be able to have that sort of lifestyle, but through that qualification and through my career since, I've ended up very much being able to grow into that sort of role and that sort of space, and whenever I need to get my feet back on the ground, I go back to the place where that coffee shop now is. It's now a different coffee shop, but it's still there and I sit there and I have to look at the same view and I get a bit of perspective from where I've come from to where I am now.

Sharon Critchlow: 5:10

What I did is I left that town that had trained me to be an accountant and I went to the other side of the county still a very rural place and I learned a few more things about accountancy. I became a manager. One of the things I learned more than anything else is how not to be a manager. So I think this is probably one of the first life lessons that I learned about leadership is that all of life is coaching. Everything around you is teaching you something if you pay attention, and it wasn't until fairly recently. I actually met leaders that I would say were great leaders. Before that I met people who were kind of getting by. They were people with great technical ability who didn't have great people ability Even when they had their own businesses. That was a bit of a constraint for them. To be honest, it was a constraint for them keeping staff. It was a constraint for them sometimes dealing with issues with clients. So I'd moved then up to Bristol, which is a fairly sizeable city in the UK, and I decided that I was going to do something different. So still along accountancy theme, but not as an accountant.

Sharon Critchlow: 6:15

I went into financial services quite low down to a fairly straightforward admin job while I thought about what I really wanted to do. And the thing is, the business part of my brain that accountancy had woken up wouldn't shut up. It kept looking at the business. I was sitting in thinking operationally, we could do this, we could do that. So I went to the board with some proposals and I became a director of that company and I stayed there for 17 years and we grew it from being a very small business to being a very good seven figure mid-sized business. I was in charge of compliance and so making sure that we were legally right, and in financial services in the UK that's quite a task because there's a lot of legality to get your business through if you want to remain profitable but you also want to be on the right side of the law. I was also in charge of operations and in charge of all of our team, all of the hiring and firing, as it were, all of the personal development for all of our people.

Sharon Critchlow: 7:13

From there I sold out of that business in my mid 40s and that's went into a really interesting even more interesting as if that was interesting enough as it was when I'd moved to the big city I didn't know anyone, I didn't have any friends, so I thought I need a network, that's what I need. So I went back to ACCA to see what they were doing, and they were doing some professional development courses in Bristol and I turned up to all of them and basically just met people and learned things. And they said you'll hear a lot. Would you like to join the panel? And I'm like I have no idea what that is, but go on then. And I'm so glad I did so.

Sharon Critchlow: 7:48

There's another lesson in leadership to learn is step outside your comfort zone a bit and try something a bit different. So this panel what it meant was to be helping with putting these courses together. Who would be a good speaker, and things like this, and what you'd have to do is, when we got this speaker, you would have to turn up at the start of the event and say today's speaker is Joe Brown and he's speaking about taxation and the coffee is at 730. And the problem is nobody wanted to do it. Everybody was afraid because it's public speaking and it's one of those things that people fear. And accountants, you know, we're put on this planet to talk to ourselves and look at a calculator, apparently, so it's even worse trying to find a volunteer who wants to do that. So I ended up doing it and I can remember looking at this basically not talking to the crowd but talking to a piece of paper and seeing this paper shaking in my hand as I did it. And I did it over and over and over again, and many years on now I'm a conference speaker, but I can still remember how it felt to step out in front of the small group of people, all of which were lovely, most of which are my friends. I don't have to say the speaker today is Joe and he's talking about tax and be petrified. But I love public speaking now and I love getting the soft skills and the people skills out there to more and more accountants, which is part of my reason for being, if you like.

Sharon Critchlow: 9:13

So when I escaped from my previous business, I didn't have a plan, which is not very like me. I'm normally very much up for have a plan, work towards your plan, know where you're going in life and I thought I would just see what happened. And what happened is I became an executive director, which I've now been for a couple of different businesses. I also joined council at ACCA on the accountancy body, and that is a wonderful privilege to be voted into that position.

Sharon Critchlow: 9:38

We have 250,000 members in 176 countries and it's an open vote. They can vote for who they want to be at the top of the tree and the organization and to agree strategy with the executive team and hold the executive team into account. And I am one of those people, and so I do feel hugely proud and humbled that I would be given that opportunity, which I have now held for seven years. So in addition to that, there are other subcommittees at ACCA. I've also sat on and continue to sit on, and that's basically it. So now I go out and I share my insights on leadership, on emotional intelligence, which is something I think that is a real silver bullet. It's a real magic If you can read it, learn it, understand it, apply it in your daily life, then you'll see a huge change in how you lead and actually the sort of life you have, the sort of conversations that you can have. So that's me.

Kyla Cofer: 10:35

Wow. So there's a lot to unpack there. You have such an amazing story and I love what you said where your accountants are put on this I don't remember how you said it the accountants are put on this earth to look at numbers on a calculator. But you took it and you understood that it was the public speaking was just a skill that you had to learn, that it wasn't something to be terrified of. I mean, you were terrified when you first started, but that you embraced that it was a skill to learn and if you just thought of it that way, as a skill, you got better and better at it. And now, I mean you just were telling me before we started that you just came from a conference where you were doing like 12 presentations or something crazy. You really embraced that.

Sharon Critchlow: 11:13

Absolutely, and I've stood on some of the biggest stages in the UK and actually quite a few ones in Europe as well just basically sharing my knowledge, showing my experience and sharing particularly my insights on emotional intelligence. But it is a skill, all of these things. When you look at a baby and you think what a wonderful potential that baby has, why do we think differently when we look at ourselves? Because we're even better than that baby, because we're like that baby plus a load of experience, and yet for some reason, we can look at ourselves and think I'm constrained in some way or I have less to offer in some way, and yet I don't know a person who will hold a small child in their hands and not think that they could achieve anything that they want.

Kyla Cofer: 11:54

Oh, wow, yeah, that's a beautiful way of looking at it. I remember when my kids were born and looking at them and being like, well, I mean of then, the complete feeling of overwhelm, like how am I going to do this? Was this idea of they really have like this blank slate? They have the whole world open to them. They can do anything. Yeah, we do as an adult. We're like, well, but I can't do that. Other people can do that, I can't. But they're really. Things are just skills. We just have to learn the skills and decide what's interesting enough to put the work in to keep going Absolutely.

Sharon Critchlow: 12:23

And so I mean my life. I've learned so many different types of skills and they just all build on to each other, really. So I can now publish books. I write books.

Sharon Critchlow: 12:33

I left school, well, I could barely write anything at all, so this is a skill I've learned. You know, you practice, you get a bit better, get some feedback. You don't take it personally, you only you try it again. And it's exactly the same with anything.

Sharon Critchlow: 12:46

But you've got to know what it is you want, and I think this is something that people get on the treadmill and they keep moving and they keep heading towards a goal that's perhaps given to them, or an obvious goal. You want to get promoted, you want to climb the corporate ladder and be this or be that, but what I would say is that the careers that really shine, of, where people have taken a look at themselves and said, okay, these are the things that I want to have, that I want to share with the world. So, whatever role I do, this has to. I have to have this somewhere, and these are the things that I want to improve in me. So I'm willing to not be so good at those until I learn it, so that equal element of challenge and contribution, and when you do that, you bring your best self to the whole situation, and that's when careers really fly.

Kyla Cofer: 13:35

Absolutely A couple specific things I want to talk about, but one last thing on this is that I have noticed, when I am jealous of somebody, when I think, well, that's not fair, that they can be like that, that really just means that that's something that I have a desire for, that I'm trying to hide for some reason, or I'm pushing away or making an excuse for so, when I'm like, oh, I'm jealous of her for being on doing seven, present 12 presentations at this conference, really what it means is I want to be doing 12 presentations at a conference, so I need to be putting myself in a position where I can be doing that, thinking about jealousy in terms of not negative, but maybe more of a it's telling you what you want.

Sharon Critchlow: 14:15

Yeah, it's a point of reflection. We're all mirrors of each other and I often think that when you find somebody very irritating in the things that they do, then is it actually that you do it and you dislike it in yourself.

Kyla Cofer: 14:28

And it's the same sort of thing 100%.

Sharon Critchlow: 14:31

It's the same sort of thing 100%. And the thing is, the more open you are, the more you go out there and put yourself forward for things. Then I don't get every conference I apply for, every every med role that I apply for, but I often think that if you put yourself out there enough, the right thing will come to you. What you are seeking is also seeking you.

Kyla Cofer: 14:55

Well, you know, that's not what we were going to talk about today, but I really needed to hear that. So I'm sure somebody else did, because that is what, something that I've been thinking about this week, and I guess that's really why I love interviewing people from all over the world, because I've realized how much we are alike and how much we need each other. I just think it's really beautiful, and I love talking about leadership, because we really do need each other as leaders and we need the people that we lead and we need people who lead us, and we need all of that and, man, I really needed to hear that today. So, thank you. But I want to talk about your board experience, because you mentioned that you have been on the board of the ACCA ACCA is that right? That's right. So you've been on the board. Can you talk about what it's like to be on a board? That's the overall question. I've got some more specific questions, but let's just start there. Like, what is it like to be on a board?

Sharon Critchlow: 15:40

Okay. So I've sat on the board in a number of different roles. So in its basic terms, a board will have a chair and the chair will decide the agenda. So if you want to put something you think that the board should change or look at or discuss or whatever, then what you need to do is go through the chair, in whichever format that they say. These things often have come with a lot of papers.

Sharon Critchlow: 16:04

So always read your papers well in advance and get some questions and be curious about how things could change. And don't assume that you know everything, but assume that you know enough to question whether are we this or are we that? Are we happy with this? What does this look like? How does this look like in different lenses? And that will differ depending on the role that you have on the board. So if you are in an executive role, so it's your day job. In effect, it's what you do all the time. And when you're not on the board at a board meeting, then you're actually running the department that reports into that board. Then your job there normally is to bring to the board the things that need decisions on, and you would normally do a paper which you then present to the board and then the board discusses it and gives you the answer that you are seeking. It's the can I have funding for this type of question? It's the we need to make a decision on a new piece of software, research, that is this or this. But there are these upsides and downsides and the board needs to decide. It's those sorts of things.

Sharon Critchlow: 17:06

When you're a non executive director which I am now because I've been an executive director of finance when you are a non executive director, it's different. It is a part time role. When I am not there, I don't have a department to run. My job is to be a critical friend and that means I'm there to be a mentor to the people on the board. So when they think, actually, you've got a lot of experience in this area and we're trying to move into that area, we don't really know anything, then that's when I can take them to one side and they can pick my brains on things, or I can look at things on their behalf, or I can answer their questions where I can, or I can point them in the direction of other professionals or other people in my network who can help them.

Sharon Critchlow: 17:46

But I'm also there to be critical. So I am there to ask the difficult questions because my job does not rely on it. My job relies on asking difficult questions. So I'm there to talk about the elephant in the room. I'm there to give the bigger perspective of the world, because when you're doing a job 24 seven it's the minutiae of everything you've had to deal with is where your focus tends to be, and what your non executive directors do is they widen that focus and they say, okay, I appreciate our policy is this, but how does that look to the outside world? How does that look when you look at this legislation about to come in? How does that look in the context of environmental, social governance, for example? So it's to actually take those things and expand everyone's viewpoint on it.

Sharon Critchlow: 18:36

So, even if we don't have the answer, the things to ask the question and then we may all seek the answer. So on a board you will have lots of different people with different skills. You'll have finance, you may have human resources, a people person, you may have somebody from technology and then you may have more general non executive directors as well. So the size of the board will depend an awful lot on the size of the business and the place that the business is in its growth cycle. So if it's a technology business, you'll probably have non executive directors that are used to it growing businesses in technology, for example.

Sharon Critchlow: 19:10

So when I go on to boards, my role normally is they say, oh, there's a finance person who knows all about these things, which I do, and so they normally take me on to say, to look at the finance things and to challenge the accountant as they come through with the numbers and their assumptions and do we think the cash flow looks correct, etc.

Sharon Critchlow: 19:31

And yes, I do all of that.

Sharon Critchlow: 19:32

But that doesn't mean to say that I keep my mouth shut for the rest of the gear.

Sharon Critchlow: 19:36

So the rest of the time when I'm not doing that, I look at it as though I were a member of the public and I ask the questions that are, if you like, a bit more, maybe a bit more basic, less technical than I ask in my normal technical role, but that are very useful when it comes to them positioning themselves for their clients. So they'll say, oh, we're going to do this, we're going to, we're going to launch new product is going up on this thing, it's going up on that thing, and I'll look at it and I'll think that's great. But that product's kind of probably aimed at the over 50s, and so I'll ask the question, who's this aimed at? And I'll say, yeah, it's aimed at the over 50s. I think that's great, and it relies on technology just all of your market, they all able to access technology. Now there's a question, and maybe they are for what they're doing or maybe they're not, and that's something they have to think about. So those are the sorts of things that that we do as non executive directors.

Kyla Cofer: 20:30

I'm curious did you go through any specific training about being on a board, being a board member? Because I mean you had all your training from being an executive director and being in finance, but did you have any specific training about how, what it looks like to be on a board? Because that's a little bit different.

Sharon Critchlow: 20:45

It is. And so I had some training, some formal, a little bit of formal training, but a lot of it came actually out of my professional life, professional qualification, because as an accountant, part of what you're trained to do is to do things at board level. So we're trained to answer those sorts of levels of questions. So it became very easy to walk into a boardroom and, yes, my chosen specialist subject is your accounts and, yes, I can tell you anything you want to know. But there are organisations out there and in fact I volunteer for one in the UK which helps to, helps people to become board ready, so helps them to understand the protocols on a board, helps them to understand what would be appropriate, maybe to ask them what's not appropriate, how to get people around to your way of thinking or to get your point across, because of course they're all busy people and they've all set themselves on a certain course. And if you look at something and you think I'm just not convinced, then you need to find your voice and actually say that. So an element of confidence, if you like, has to come out in you that says I'm not saying you've got to slam your fist on the desk and make demands, but you do need to make sure that you are heard where you need to be heard, because that is your job to do.

Sharon Critchlow: 21:59

I learned a good basic from being an accountant and from understanding governance, which is what we do. And, of course, a board. That's what a board is. It's about governance. It's about making sure that the organisation is run with integrity and to the values that it has decided it has and in line with the shareholders expectations. So this is that's the board's role is to make sure that all of these stakeholders are met, that the legal requirements are met. You know all of those things.

Sharon Critchlow: 22:29

So it is a governance position and as an ACCA accountant, I was taught how to do that, and I did then sit with a lot of other non-executive directors and attend some calls and some courses online, but where they were discussing how they did their job and boards that they had been on and things that they had overcome and how they dealt with difficult situations on boards. And obviously then you learn from their experience as well, and I'd say I'd like, moving into anything that's a little bit different expand your network. So I started networking with lots of other non-executive directors so that I would have people that I could contact. If I wasn't sure how would you approach this situation, what would be? Is it me? On a no names basis, I've found this situation, I'm not sure. What do you think. And so it's been a bit of both. It's been a bit of formal learning and actually quite a lot of networking and getting out there and being curious.

Kyla Cofer: 23:29

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Kyla Cofer: 25:11

What would you say to somebody who's considering a board position, but it seems I don't know it seems overwhelming, or it seems like too much work, or they're just scared of it. What are some of the advantages for being on a board? Because you've talked about some of that generally, but maybe we can be more specific, because I want to talk about how positive this experience is. It's a great thing to be on a board, but it is a lot of responsibility, so do you?

Sharon Critchlow: 25:34

want to change the world or do you want to change the world for that group of people that that board and that company influences or sells to or serves? Because if you do, then get on the board, get on your big girl pants and get on with it, because this is you know it's actually. It can be more frustrating to have board decisions come down to you that you have to then implement where you know deep down, it's probably not the right thing for your consumers, your patients, your customers, your whatever's. But the board has said we're doing it like this and so you're doing it like that, and that can be very, very frustrating.

Sharon Critchlow: 26:16

The good thing with being around the board table is you, if you can find your voice and be heard, is you can tell them. You can say I disagree, actually I think our customers need this and this is why I think they need. This is the evidence I have that they need this and you can influence how that organization is and you can influence it for your customers. You can influence it for your staff. You have the opportunity to sit there and say actually, I think they deserve a pay rise, actually, I think we have to find the money for them to have an extra three days holiday a year. Actually, everybody else in our sector is giving free training on this. We need to give them free training.

Sharon Critchlow: 26:55

You can actually advocate for your colleagues from this position, you can advocate for your sector from this position and you can advocate for yourself a lot better from that position, because the people making the decisions are sitting right next to you and in front of you. So I would say that if you think it's a bit overwhelming, it can be even more overwhelming to receive, when you know what's right for the organization to receive information down to you where you're thinking that's just not going to work. How am I going to make that work? I don't believe this is the right thing. So I would say that that's a less comfortable position than being one of the people who makes those choices.

Kyla Cofer: 27:38

So how do you, when you're on that board, how do you, I think this goes back to that. It's a skill that needs to be learned and it's just a skill you have to work on and grow in, approach conflicts in the board and that I've got this idea but it's been shot down a dozen times. Or I want to advocate for myself but I'm getting put into a corner and ignored and that kind of thing. Everybody's like oh, it's that girl again speaking up. It's her, it's just her, it's just him again. How do we put ourselves in that where we can listen and be heard?

Sharon Critchlow: 28:10

So what I would say is sometimes things are a matter of timing. So sometimes you have been heard but you don't realize you've been heard because it's almost been dismissed and you think you're not listening. We have to do this, and if you go and speak to the chair, chances are that there'll be an opportunity where they'll say yeah, I know what you're saying and I'm not disagreeing. We just can't do it in this financial year. So it's then that you say well, can we put it as an agenda item for this time next year to discuss it, so that it is at least not forgotten? So one of the tactics I would say is, if you feel that you're not been heard, is to go and talk to the chair and say I feel I've not been heard and I would like to table this to be reexamined in the future. The second thing I'd say is always go very, very well prepared over prepared. If you think it's going to be a difficult sell, so get all your evidence. What's everyone else saying about it, what's everyone else doing about it, what surveys have you done, what information do you have? And put it forward to think of the win-win. So, especially if it's going to cost money, why do they want to do it? Why now? Is this going to make us more competitive? Is this going to make us unique in the market? Is this going to stop all our people from leaving? Just think about what's the why in this. Where's the compelling reason, why?

Sharon Critchlow: 29:33

And sometimes you've got to do a bit of a selling job, because not everyone can see what you can see, and sometimes you do have to kind of put your case together and say and present it maybe as a little story that says, "so. I found this situation and then I did a bit of research and I've come to this conclusion and now I'd like to share that with you and I think we should discuss it." and take them on that journey, but be prepared that they may not be ready to do that whole journey now. It may end up back as an agenda item in the future, but at least what I would say is if you think it's going to be difficult, do it that way. Another way I would say, if it's time critical, I've been on board to which it's been time critical. I've been on boards where mergers have had to happen fairly quickly for financial reasons, and this isn't something that people necessarily initially around the table, thought was even an agenda item.

Sharon Critchlow: 30:28

So another thing you can do is to go and talk to each of your board members individually behind the scenes and explain the situation to them, explain what you've discovered, why you think this is important, and say I'd just like to get some soundings from you. I'd just like to see what you think, because, again, not everybody will show all of their colours around the table at the same time, but if they know that more than one person's got kind of thinking the same thing, you're more likely to get an idea as to whether you have a headwind that people are going to support that thing or what the problems are. Because again, somebody might come back to you and say we looked at that last year and this was what happened. And you might look at it and go oh, fair enough, you know, okay, I'm okay with that.

Sharon Critchlow: 31:11

So, yeah, don't be too afraid to go to other board members and say can I just run something by you and get some soundings, because that will help you to put that case together and see how viable it is and how much support you're likely to get. So those are the two non-confrontational kind of board methods that I've certainly used in the past. I've also used the slamming hand on the desk and going no, and then crossing my arms and going and saying nothing at all, but that did tend to happen more as an executive director when it was a legal issue. Can we just no?

Kyla Cofer: 31:46

You know I love that the no is a complete sentence and sometimes it just needs to be said and you can't budge. And the shutting up, the closing your mouth and not saying another word just lets that no kind of set in.

Sharon Critchlow: 31:58

Absolutely. So, yes, there's a time for no.

Kyla Cofer: 32:01

Well, so tell me, Sharon, when, if you are in entry level or mid level of your career and being on a board is like the ultimate goal, think back to where you were. It might not have been something you were thinking about when you were 23, you know, but if you were kind of more in the middle of your career, getting started out, what would you say to somebody if that was their ultimate goal of, like, I want to be on the board, that's the ultimate position? What can somebody do now to really start preparing themselves for that role and putting themselves in a position where they would get that role.

Sharon Critchlow: 32:33

So what I would say is you need to get some experience, and the easiest way to get some experience is to become a trustee of a charity or a not-for-profit organization in your region. So, whether that is some, you know the Children's Scouts Association, whether that's your local church, whether it's you know all of these types of organizations, because what they will do is they will have board meetings. They will have meetings to discuss things and you will see, sometimes you may meet a really good chair of it and sometimes you might meet a not so good chair of one. But you will actually get to sit around board meetings as a trustee and you'll get to hear what goes on and you'll get some experience of being in that position. And also then, when you go for a job on a board, you'll be able to say that you already have some board experience. So you're already used to getting the minutes from the previous meeting and looking through, getting the papers and understanding them and thinking about how you're going to put your questions forward.

Sharon Critchlow: 33:30

So being a trustee on a charity or a not-for-profit or that sort of thing. So the local church, the local school, you know parent teachers kind of thing, as we call them in the UK. Being on those things puts you in those decision-making bodies and decision-making positions where you will learn a lot. You'll learn a lot from everybody else around the table. You'll grow your network from everyone else around the table and also they're the people who are going to give you a reference when you go for that job, because the chair of this thing is going to be the one who's seen you in action around this board table. So I would say volunteer, perfect, all right?

Kyla Cofer: 34:09

Well, I want to talk about a little bit too. One of the things that you mentioned early on in our conversation was the emotional intelligence of a leader, because that's something that really matters to you personally and that's something you've invested a lot in teaching others and doing. Let's talk about that for a minute, because it's kind of actually been the theme of this season and the podcast, as we were talking about emotional intelligence and why that matters. But when you say emotional intelligence, what are you meaning and tell us about how you teach others this and how you emphasize it in leadership. Taking

Sharon Critchlow: 34:45

emotional intelligence right back to the start, so right back to the 1990s, Daniel Goldman noticed that not everybody who got a Harvard degree ended up with a big career, and he wanted to analyze why some people did really well and some people didn't. And basically what he had ascertained is that technical knowledge wasn't quite enough. You needed to have a bit of a people skill, and that people skill is what he called emotional intelligence. And the emotional intelligence part of this, if you like, is around how you respond to things, how you use your emotions, how aware you are of your emotions, and then what you do next. Because people aren't like textbooks, they're not like maths equations. You know you don't have John plus Zoe equals Tamara. This does not happen. What happens is you get everyone's got their own view. It's like herding cats and so actually getting things out of people. Understanding people, whatever people's responses to you won't be what you expect. Sometimes they could be really rude, and then you've still got to work with them. You know, it's all of these things learning this skill, being able to jump over that barrier that says actually that was a bit rude, and then moving forward from that, is where you can then bring people together and that's where you can get consensus and that is what leadership is. It's about taking people on a journey, and you can't take people on a journey if you're too easily offended. So this isn't about having too much of a thick skin. This is about really understanding what upsets you.

Sharon Critchlow: 36:14

Earlier we were saying about jealousy, about that's not fair. That person just do this and I don't get to do this. I think we all have a bit of that from time to time. But what it means is that is tapping into an emotion, and understanding that emotion as it occurs means you can do something about it.

Sharon Critchlow: 36:30

So I've seen people, when they're jealous, bite back at people and try and be little that somebody else's achievement because, oh, it's not all that and it's because they wanted it and they either didn't achieve it or actually they didn't even put them out themselves out there to do it in the first place. This is what normally happens. So it's that understanding your emotions, because if you can understand your emotion, then you have this wonderful opportunity to influence the outcome and make it a win-win for everybody. So I'll give you an example of something that happened to me when one of my buttons were pushed, as the younger generation says I had a triggering incident. So a few years ago I was manning a stand at one of these conference things and a lady came over to me and said how can you stand there when you look so fat? So what can

Kyla Cofer: 37:20

I say? I'm sorry. Right now you see my jaw like on the floor. I cannot believe somebody would ever ever say that. I'm just like. I need to hear the rest of the story and not interrupt you. But I'm just in, I had to go out on stage after that.

Sharon Critchlow: 37:31

Knowing this, I've now been fat-shamed. So yeah, so 27-year-old Sharon would have probably slapped her, because 27-year-old Sharon was a bit feisty. 47-year-old Sharon would have probably been in tears. But thankfully she met 47-year-old Sharon who looked at her and said what is it about fat that you don't like? And she said well, I'm nowhere near as fat as you and I can barely leave the house because of it. So now she's gone from being somebody who's highly offensive to somebody who needs a bit of care and attention from me. So I said should I come down and have a chat about that? And listening to what she told me just made me think well, actually, you know what? This is nothing. We're all mirrors. She's seen me and she's just, you know, let it all out and that's fine. But my response to that was a question and I would always say that if you're in those challenging situations, the emotionally intelligent response is to ask the question, is to ask more information. So from that I really understood that she had a real problem with her body. And to look at her, I'm like nothing wrong with you. From where I am you have a perfectly healthy looking body. But for her that wasn't the body she saw. So actually, what she needed was my empathy. She didn't need to be shouted at, she certainly didn't need to be slapped.

Sharon Critchlow: 38:55

But this is where you can get to with this and, of course, when you're around a board table, people will say things that can be a bit cutting sometimes and you have to decide what your response to that's gonna be. You're gonna go hide in a corner, even though you know that you have to hold the line on this because it's a legal requirement, so it's something that's really important or are you going to acknowledge that that's happened, take care of yourself for the fact that that's happened, decide what you're going to do with that, but actually then choose your response. So another classic one that my business partner often says if somebody says something that's a bit rude or out of order, she says can you say that again please? Because you see, two thirds of people, only one third of people actually understand their emotions as they're occurring. Which means two thirds of the people that you meet, it's going on in their head and it's out their mouth before they've even really thought about it. So when you challenge them and say, can you say that again please? They say well, actually, what I really meant was, and then you actually get. You get the toned down version, don't you get the more polite version, you get a half apology most of the time, you get the well sorry, what I really meant was this. And so you actually then have the opportunity to have a conversation, as opposed to just having to take a slap and go for it.

Sharon Critchlow: 40:08

So the reason I think emotional intelligence is so important is because it's a good life skill to have in any form of relationship, but particularly when you're leading, particularly when you're having to deal with situations where people are going to throw their stuff at you, that you need to recognize what is your stuff and what is other people's stuff. Recognize if it is a button that's being pushed in you and do something about it. Because you can do something about it. You can reframe things, you can decide to get therapy for it. If it keeps happening, you decide whatever it is that you want to do. But one thing that is I'd found for me is that, as a personal development tool, emotional intelligence because it covers the areas of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management is that it has made me a lot more confident to be able to deal with difficult situations because I just see people as being people on a journey and I accept that sometimes they will just they will throw their reaction at you rather than a thought-through response at you.

Kyla Cofer: 41:09

Yeah, absolutely. I'm just sitting here thinking. I've been talking about this all season, like all summer. All year long we've been talking about emotional intelligence and I think the reason I talk about it so much because I'm sitting here imagining what our entire world, our country, our community, our family relationships be like if we all responded to each other with this type of empathy, with a question, with a can you say that again, or tell me more about that? What do you mean when you say that If we're bold enough to approach responses that way instead of our immediate emotional reactions, and if we teach our children this and the world comes up and changes that way, our world will look completely different. We would accomplish more. We would work towards goals instead of arguments.

Kyla Cofer: 42:00

I believe this is such an important and crucial part of not just leadership but humanity and being human and maturity and learning to have that courage and boldness. In a way, boldness doesn't have to mean rudeness, boldness doesn't mean louder. Boldness just means the courage to respond in a mature way that says tell me what you mean when you say that. Can you say that again? Those are such good questions that you ask and that just dug deeper. And if the woman who said that to you, and then for these other stories of just now, I'm seeing you as a person and I'm not seeing your words. It's just so, so important and it changes everything about the way we lead.

Sharon Critchlow: 42:48

I absolutely agree, and the thing is that I'm very fortunate that I'm a female leader in the time that I live in now. If I had been a female leader 100 years ago, I might have had to have got my megaphone and my shouty voice out. But we are heard in different ways now, and this is that the system we have is still not perfect. There aren't enough women on boards, there aren't enough, as it were, gentle approaches to how we make decisions or how we bring people together, but it's still quite testosterone-driven in places, and so we have to learn that it's to get a little bit of a thick skin to actually part some of this stuff that we feel personally offended by and think okay, but let's just see if I'm right on this, let's ask a few more questions and let's see if, but with them talking to us, they come to a different conclusion. And quite often that is the case, because you're having a dialogue, you're not just having to accept what is thrown at you.

Kyla Cofer: 43:49

Absolutely. Sharon, our time is wrapping up here. As we wrap up, is there anything that you wanna make sure people hear today? Just about well anything. I can be specific but, is there anything you wanna make sure that people walk away? And if there's one thing someone took away from our conversation today, what would you like that to be?

Sharon Critchlow: 44:06

One of the things that people ask me is what is a leader? Or how do you know if you're a leader? And what I would say is that more of us are leaders than we think of. It's obvious if you're on a board and then you're a leader, but lots of us are leaders in different ways. So I would say is anybody following you? Does anybody rely on your decision making? And if you're thinking, well, I'm a mum, so, yes, well, great, you're a leader of your family.

Sharon Critchlow: 44:33

There are lots of different ways to lead and there's lots of different ways that you can practice your leadership, and don't discount any of them as being a lesser thing than being on a board. It's all learning, it's all training you for that position that you want. So be bold, decide what you want, because if I can do it, quite frankly, anybody can. You just need to have a clear vision of what you want. And the great thing is is part of your brain group, of a particular activating system, and it goes and seeks out what it is that you want. So it's a pattern spotter.

Sharon Critchlow: 45:06

So if you say, for example, I want to go to yoga on a Tuesday, you'll find you'll be in the local convenience store and there'll be a little thing up and go, look, they do yoga on Tuesday. I hadn't spotted that before. Because there's a bit of your brain that goes oh yeah, there, it is. Same as if you like red shoes, like I do, I go out there, I see red shoes everywhere and yet anybody else go oh, that's really rare, nobody has red shoes. And I look at it and my brain goes oh look, red shoes, red shoes, red shoes. So get clear on what you want and go for it, because at the end of the day, even if it's a disaster, even if it's a mess, you'll learn something and then you'll do it differently next time. Because this is not the dress rehearsal, this is the main act and you're about to step out on that stage. So go for it.

Kyla Cofer: 45:49

That's really really such a so inspiring. Thank you so much, Sharon. I'm not asking or contributing as many questions, because I'm just soaking it in and just so feeling empowered and inspired and I really just appreciate that. Sharon, how can our listeners find you and work with you and follow

Sharon Critchlow: 46:02

you? So my name is Sharon Critchlow, I am on LinkedIn and my business is Discover Your Bounce. So we are discoveryourbounce. com. I'm out there on all the usual social channels.

Kyla Cofer: 46:14

Awesome, excellent. We'll make sure to have links to all those in our show notes and make sure we can find you and connect with you. I am so appreciate your time and your stories and your just authenticity and sharing all this wisdom with us. I'm just really grateful for your time today. Thank you so much for joining me here.

Sharon Critchlow: 46:29

Thank you for inviting me. It's been really exciting.

Kyla Cofer: 46:35

So I started this podcast because I wanted to learn and grow in my leadership journey and I have been so incredibly inspired by the guests and the conversations. So once the interview ends, I actually keep the conversation going because I have found that sometimes the richest part of the conversation is when we feel like the interview's over and we can just kind of have a relaxed, more casual conversation. Also, if you've noticed, if you've been following this podcast for some time, I used to ask every guest two questions what does integrity mean to them and what does balance look like to them? Well, I haven't stopped asking those questions. We're just putting those over on our Patreon page. So go check it out at patreon. com/ leaderships chool and for $6.50 a month you can support this podcast.

Kyla Cofer: 47:22

It takes a lot to produce every single episode and honestly, I could use a little bit of support. So anything that you're able to contribute would really mean a lot to me and would able to help me to continue to bring these high caliber guests in to have conversations on what does it look like to be an extraordinary leader and how do we practically do that. So those conversations are continuing over at patreon. com/ leadership school where I'm asking guests some extra questions, some bonus questions. You'll get some bonus content over there, so be sure to go check it out. Thanks so much for your support and thanks so much for subscribing, listening and sharing this podcast. It really does mean a lot and I'm so honored to show up here in your podcast feed. Thanks so much for listening. If you've liked what you heard and you want some more tools and resources to help you on your journey, go check out kylacofer. com/ free stuff.